Vault’s Verdict

Those who work at the Poirier Group are fiercely protective of their firm’s culture. Throughout the responses we reviewed for this year’s survey, we found recurring themes of overwhelming enthusiasm for the close-knit, familial culture that has been cultivated at this Canada-based boutique. Colleagues genuinely care about one another and work together to ensure each other’s success. This is a firm that thrives because its people thrive, and despite any of the logistical pains of working for such a small firm, insiders believe the caliber of people they work with offset the long hours and near-constant growth mentality.

There is also an unshakeable faith in management—in the firm’s CEO, whose leadership many credit with instilling such a strong sense of culture. You get the sense that each Poirier Group employee is carefully selected as much for their technical consulting know-how as they are for their potential to thrive in a culture such as this. Indeed, the CEO appears to be directly involved in the hiring process, and this sort of in-the-weeds leadership undoubtedly inspires the level of pride TPG employees feel about working at their firm.

Firm Culture

• “We have the best culture, hands down. Complete 100% alignment between who we say we are vs. who we actually are. We may not have the best technical experts, subject matter experts, project leads or may not be competitive on price always, but we never fail our projects due to the shear brute force of our clients falling in love with the members of our teams and their integrity. Our team culture is an aura that extends over to our client projects, so most of our clients verbatim say we "feel different than the other firms". That is our primary differentiator, our people.”
• “The culture, we care about each other and want to see everyone succeed. It’s like an extension of family. We all get along, work hard and help wherever we are needed. It's the main thing keeping me here.”
• “You will have a variety of experiences, working beside top individuals, in a caring teaching environment with a dedicated and highly regarded industry leader that preaches proper values for sustained success, all in a success company on a growth trajectory - you could not ask for more.”
• “Compared to many larger firms I've had experience with, the personalized, "family" feel here is strongly felt and really contributed to positive employee AND client experiences.”
• “The CEO.  Our culture is definitely driven from the top. Our success internally and externally are a direct result of his leadership.  We are truly a team, we have each other's back, we strive to exceed our clients’ expectations and we have fun together. Politics, ego and bureaucracy have no place at TPG.  I feel very fortunate to have found an authentic workplace where I am happy and fulfilled.”
• “TPG is for those looking for a very different experience in their career. You will never be bored and you will have a group of people fully committed to your success. Everyone is constantly learning, being mentored, practicing and trying new things out, and pushing on your growth, never being satisfied with current levels of performance. It's not a "comfortable" place by any stretch of the imagination, as we are constantly doing feedback with each other to help each other, but in a way that feels healthy, and is never an attack. In fact, it's the highest form of flattery we can give each other is to care enough about each other to find those areas of opportunity we each have, and work together to address them. TPG is a small family. We laugh a lot. Sometimes its awkward or not hyper-professional, but we're extraordinary at what we do. And over 15 years, hundreds and hundreds of projects, we have not had one negative client reference.”

Quality of Life

• “Hours here are typical of consulting; we are more or less flexible to the employees’ needs, the travel requirements are also typical [pre-Covid-19], but I guess the nice thing is we do a Mon-Thursday away and try to be in the office on Fridays to see coworkers and catch-up/brainstorm. Taking time off isn't a hassle, if you are a leader you need to work with the executive to assist in coverage, though that is too be expected in any job.”
• “We are encouraged to use PTO for mental health days and use up our vacation. Leadership stresses the importance of using your vacation each year and not holding off on it. Breaks are necessary to recharge and leadership preaches this. Hours can be long at some points during the projects. Essentially this is the reality of consulting.”
• “The company has done a terrific job with respect to the Covid-19 crisis we are all working under.  Quick to act, constant communication and proper protocols and procedures for stage 3 re-opening.  Prior, the business traveling was perfectly in-line with my expectations and did not really cause me any concern.”
• “Vacation allowances get increased as your seniority increases with the company. Employees are encouraged to use the time up each year to refresh and recharge. If someone needs to be covered, another resource will be transitioned onto the project to support during the time off.”
• “Our wellness plan includes a social committee which schedules quarterly events for our team like bowling, virtual reality games, escape rooms, axe throwing - two of which are offsite, where we include physical and team activities that bring a lively and fun experience for social connection amongst team members. We have an onsite gym, sauna, and showers. Our EAP program supports counselling, and other wellness services. Individuals throw out regular challenges to the team to encourage healthy eating, exercise such as 'planking for 30 days challenge’, where our teams also engaged our clients in this daily event.”
• “There are both corporate policies and individual team policies for our client projects. At the corporate level, we have a team that monitors burnout and vacation to make sure our team's staff are balanced. We track hours and have alerts and flags pop up if people's hours go outside of the norm on the high side and potentially an intervention will be made. Everyone is on a coaching/mentorship plan, which is another check-in. The leadership team and HR does 1:1's with the entire firm every 2 weeks to check in on people, so we work very hard to protect our team's mental health. We have a full gym, sauna and other facilities at our office and people are encouraged to use it, even during work hours as we operate based on outcomes delivered, not fixed hours. About 75% of the teams have fitness challenges they do; one for example does a P90X insanity challenge via video conference 5 days a week...”

Career Development

• “Being a boutique organization, we have a tremendous amount of flexibility with regard to career development moves. We believe in a career "lattice" vs. "ladder" and encourage our consultants to go deep in different areas, while being broad in others. The most prominent opportunity is to be a team lead on a significant project opportunity, of which we actively work to get our consulting team going on. At any given point, about 50% of our project leads are new to that role and undergo tremendous coaching from leads that are more senior. We must have a low turnover to be competitive, and our team desires frequency of challenge and opportunity to stay, thus we have an enormous amount of career development opportunities.”
• “Opportunities are available to those who wish to take advantage of them. Everyone is given opportunity to move around their roles from project to project depending on their skills sets, with the chance to work with other people’s skills sets to learn from each other. Great mentoring program, encourage continuing education with financial support given.”
• “The best of the career development opportunities at TPG is there is no limit in terms of learning and growth. The leadership team makes sure that I can expend my learning experiences in each project, try new technologies new roles/functions, and create new approaches in solving the problems.”
• “TPG has a strong focus on process improvement and Lean Six Sigma, which makes every project a valuable learning experience in specific, hard skills. Moreover, the ""honest input"" and management open door policies allow for broad exposure to the business, and encourage challenging questions be asked…The least positive aspect (which isn't that bad, in all fairness) is the centralization around a single founder. This takes a bit of adjusting to — I feel that a larger executive team would assist in career development, as each executive would potentially have more time to develop deep relationships with team members.”
• “Lots of opportunities to take on leadership roles at every level. A formal mentorship program is also in place where you can meet with senior consultants in the company to create development plans and determine areas for growth.”
• “Given our size, client set and flat structure, we have the ability to be extremely mobile, both to serve the highest good of our client set, and our consultants. Consultants can take on deep analytical roles in industries they haven't worked in and go deep if they'd like. Additionally, we give lots of project or program lead opportunities to individuals given how fast we are growing. While this can be daunting, we have a group of seasoned leads who coach and mentor these folks. Finally, leaders are able to lead, but also serve, depending on the project type - so we have seasoned, 20-year veterans who can play an analyst role as needed both to beef up their analytical skills so they can better lead analysts and ensure they are both broad and deep. The downside to this is that our career paths are not really ladders; they are lattices, so it's not a traditional model. Those that are used to traditional models that are more linear take a while to gravitate to this model… Essentially, everyone in the consulting practice is mobile, growing, learning and being challenged constantly.”

Compensation

• “Compensation is driven by performance and people who strive to learn and grow and support each other will benefit earlier than others...”
• “The best part of the compensation package is that when our firm does well, they are very generous with discretionary bonuses. The worst part is not having control over billable bonuses, due to discretion of management as to when/how long you are placed on projects.”
• “As you move into more of a leadership role, especially with the notion of equity and the relative valuation, the compensation overall is quite strong. Everyone also has an immediate opportunity for commission-based compensation, all the way to an analyst level role, as we like to encourage inside sales. Because of our size, we can get creative with ah-hoc bonuses in addition to the annual bonus, which can be extremely strong, based on the performance of the consultant and performance of the organization. Our base salary for newer consultants joining may not be as competitive as we'd like (although it is at industry standard), where we make up for it is in bonus which have recently been quite high, across the board given the success that we have enjoyed. We also pay significant amounts for our team regarding training and education, which when factored into bonus would put our team at the higher end of the spectrum. Our general benefits are industry standard.”

• “My compensation is tied into the direct success of the company, which is perfectly aligned to my expectations.”
• “Compensation is typical for the market and the firm size. Base is lower than larger firms but bonus is higher. Salary progresses on pace with responsibility progression.”
• “Bonuses are very generous and directly related to your contributions to the work you do.”

Diversity

• “I've experienced only positive sentiment around equality, diversity, and inclusion. The TPG staff are among the most diverse I've seen and are staffed with many women in senior roles.”
• “Our CEO and HR are very respective of cultural and gender diversity and how variety brings differing perspectives and strengths to our team. I don't believe there is any discretion given candidates other than fit to our culture, which looks for values driven, passionate, personable individuals with skills sets that augment or add to the our current bench strengths for which we are known.”
• “Our workforce is about 50% female, with both males and females equally considered when assigning leadership roles. Our workforce is also comprised of about 60% visible minority.”
• “Individuals are paid by experience, which is gender neutral, and promotions are equally applied based on skills, experience and successful engagements.  At every new engagement, the team looks to provide opportunities for growth for individuals completely regardless of their sex or nationality.”
• “Leadership (CEO) is honest and fair. Diversity and inclusion are very important to him. I appreciate this. When I joined the firm and saw the diversity on the team website page, I was very happy to see diversity in gender and race.”
• “I've been with the firm [for many] years and have been able to see our progression as well as the diversity that has been incurred into the firm with the amazing new people that have been hired. We currently have more women than men in the firm, and our demographic ethnically is extraordinarily diverse. We hire best fit for the job, with a very strong focus on culture and what these individuals bring to the table and have been lucky that those that are the best fit and have very different backgrounds across a broad spectrum of attributes. Similarly, our project leads are roughly 60% women, 40% men, which roughly falls along the same pattern as our total distribution of employees. We are lucky to get a diverse set of inbound candidates from our talent management programs so things feel quite natural.”

Outlook

• “The COVID pandemic has been tough for everyone, however, TPG's current pipeline is healthy and strong and there is a pervasive feeling of optimism for the year ahead. I have no concerns or worry over our outlook in terms of landing business opportunities and out-pacing our competitors.”
• “The Poirier Group is a smaller consulting firm but it is growing quickly and the business outlook is quite positive even with the global pandemic occurring.”
• “TPG is set for long-term sustainable growth.  The foundation is set in proper values and everything drives from that.  We are delivering 100% excellence in all of our engagements and that is paramount for future success.  We are producing new ideas, challenging status quo, revamping our marketing and online engines creating new growth engines, and hiring excellent people.”
• “We have a very strong client relationship and the satisfaction rate. I have full confidence that we will continue to grow in the coming years.”
• “Our best aspect is a positive attitude and energy which drives our confident business outlook.  Our customers have demonstrated their trust in us by continuing with contracts throughout Covid-19 and some have expanded contracts, while we've learned through clients that other consulting companies have downsized. Despite the typical business solution to preserve cash, our CEO has opted to invest further in our people by providing increased learning opportunities for all on a weekly basis.  People feel confident and secure that they are safe in their jobs.”
• “TPG is set for long-term sustainable growth.  The foundation is set in proper values and everything drives from that.  We are delivering 100% excellence in all of our engagements and that is paramount for future success.  We are producing new ideas, challenging status quo, revamping our marketing and online engines creating new growth engines, and hiring excellent people.”

Hiring Process

• “TPG seeks out-of-the-box thinkers who are open, kind, hardworking, intent on learning, and highly process-oriented. The interviews and callbacks occurred on a rapid timeline. I never felt left in the dark, so very satisfied with those.”
• “One HR Interview, one case-based interview, one fit interview, and one executive interview. Four in total. Our firm is seeking highly motivated individuals with a background in business or industrial engineering who are excellent problem solvers ad skilled in communication. Can you write a macro or pivot a data set and then lead a workshop? If so, and if you value a tight knit business that cares, then you might be just the fit for TPG.”
• “A candidate must fit in with the business culture at TPG. It is a family and everyone is super nice with each other.”
• “They were very active in responding any of my questions and were swift in their interviewing process. I believe their ideal candidate is an honest individual who is looking to learn and always strives to provide their best work.”
• “This is handled by HR but know that we work to be extremely responsive. Especially for those that we do not give offers to. We believe that how you treat people who don't get offers is very important. To treat them with respect, call out the amazing things about them and treat them with dignity and honesty - certainly not string them along. Similarly, when we have someone who is unanimous across the board, and gets the green light from our CEO, we move quickly …Our ideal candidate is someone that emulates our culture near perfectly. We believe strongly that we can develop our people's technical and soft-skills through all of the coaching and mentorship, but a cultural fit is that of the highest importance…”
• “Interviewing is done thoroughly, where candidates first meet with HR to determine a values fit, then they meet with a number of consultants in the area of expertise they are being hired for, either individually or in a panel to determine technical qualifications and ability to solve problems creatively.”

Interview Questions

• “"Can you describe a time when you went above and beyond in a project? If you were to create a company from scratch, what values would you want the company to embody?”
• “Give me an example where you took a risk that did not turn out well.  What did you learn? What are you core values and why are they important to you? Give me an example of a time when you did not do your best work.”
• “How would you describe your ideal leadership style? If you were to build your own organization, what qualities and values would you want your employees to have?”
• “Typical, open ended culture-fit questions. (Proprietary) case and process based questions, "how would you solve X" or "discuss a time when "X.”
• “My questions are around fit for culture; i.e. tell me what your neighbors/friends/professors would say about you, how do you see yourself helping make the world a better place, etc.”
• “Situation questions, technical questions, case study question.”